


A Monocular Childhood

by ElloMenoP



Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: DemoMUM, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-16
Updated: 2014-12-16
Packaged: 2018-03-01 16:50:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2780558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElloMenoP/pseuds/ElloMenoP
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tumblr request. Bit of a ‘slice of life’ story about Demo growing up after losing his eye. Focuses mostly on his relationship with his Mum.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Monocular Childhood

**Author's Note:**

> Here’s a quick timeline of little Demo’s journey for those of you who don’t know.
> 
> Highlands Demolition men (peoples?) leave their children at birth until their bomb skills manifest and then they go back to reclaim them. When Demo was roughly 5-6 he tried to blow up the Loch Ness monster and inadvertently killed his foster parents, got sent to Crypt Grammar School for Orphans, and then his real folks showed up. Then at age 7 he goes and loses his eye to the Bombinomicon.

There was no blood, that’s what that’s what scared me the most. I was so afraid that it was sign of something more sinister, I kept thinking ‘the dead don’t bleed.’ There should have been rivers of blood pouring out my empty eye socket, but there were only tears streaming out of my remaining eye. 

 

I was in a panic to get home, to get back to safety. I pushed myself up off the wet grass, blades stuck to my palms. I remember getting so frustrated that they wouldn’t come off, all I wanted to do was wipe my tears away but my hands were covered in grass. I stumbled with every step, my balance was off and I didn’t understand why it was so hard to just walk. I was getting more and more irate and scared. I was certain I’d never make it home.

 

I stumbled through the moors for ages with one hand pressed to my empty eye socket. Once I made it to town I was desperately shouting for help, but no one answered. The main street was empty, the windows shuttered and not a light on in any of them. I began to believe I was in hell, that I had been condemned to an empty Earth to live an eternity alone.

 

When I rounded the corner to our street I saw my Mum standing outside our cottage and relief flooded me. She was blurry from all the tears I was crying but she was really there, worrying about me.

 

“Mum!” 

 

She spun around at the sound of my strangled cry and ran toward me. “Tavish! Oh love, where have ye been?”

 

I collapsed in her arms, sobbing and holding on to her for dear life. 

 

“It’s all right now, love, I’ve got you.” She sat down in the dirt with me, rocking me in her arms and whispering soothing. “It’s all right, everything is going to be fine now.”

 

I cried and cried, and in between the tears I told her what happened, about the book and the magician. “My eye, Mum, my eye is gone.”

 

She laughed tenderly at that, like I was asking if Santa were real. “Oh Tavish! You’re a demoman, wha’ did you expect, to keep your eyes until you become worm food? I’d hope not, you’d embarrass the family.”

 

“But, Mum,” I hiccuped, “I didn’t lose it blowing up a bomb! What’s Dad gonna say?” I was so afraid he’d be disappointed.

 

Mum took my face in her hands, and wiped away the tears streaming out of my good eye. “Love, he’s going to be so proud of you.”

 

“Really?” I sniffled.

 

“Of course he is, you lost your eye on a job, and at seven years old no less! He’s going to be more proud than when he heard about you and the Loch Ness monster.”

 

“But...”

 

“Hush now,” she hugged me tight. “You know how I know he’s going to be proud?”

 

I shook my head against her shoulder.

 

“Because I’m proud of you.”

 

\---

 

When I awoke the next morning I didn’t feel too bad, even though a part of me was missing it didn’t feel that way. There was a cloth towel folded over the left side of my face, I took it off and sat up. Something fell down my face, it tickled and smelled strong, I picked the tiny bits of it off the bedcovers and held it in front of my remaining eye.

 

“It’s amaranth and scotch broom.” I jumped at the sudden appearance of my mum. She strode over and sat down in a chair beside my bed and pressed the cloth back to my face. “Herbs to protect you, so you better lie down and keep it on,” she ordered, though her voice didn’t have its usual sharpness to it. “How are you feeling?”

 

Truthfully I was feeling fine, there was no pain just an odd heat beneath my skin on the left side of my face, like there was lava just under the surface. I told her, “Fine, I feel fine, Mum.”

 

I wanted to get out of bed, I wanted to run to the toilet and see what had become of my face. I wanted to know if there were scars, or if I had become deformed.

 

“Better stay in bed.” Mum stood up and rearranged the bedcovers, tucking me in tighter. “I’ll bring tea.”

 

“Mum, I’m fine I promise,” I begged, and pulled at the bedcovers.

 

“Tavish!” Her gentleness was gone in an instant. “You stay in that bed.”

 

I didn’t dare disobey her, she may be blind as a bat but she never missed her mark, not that she could with that long cane of hers. She never needed her cane when we were at home, she knew where everything was, even if I misplaced a chair or toy she still knew, but she carried the cane with her anyway. It was perfect for knocking sense into wayward lads with a perchance for explosives.

 

I spent a miserable day in bed, bored out of my mind. I wouldn’t be released until the next day, after Mum cleaned my eye socket out with sweet smelling oils and filled it with herbs again. She placed a tight cloth eyepatch around my head, the first one I ever had. It bit into my forehead and I was constantly aware of its presence. When I did finally get a glimpse of my new self I wasn’t struck with any revelations, I looked like I always did, just with an eyepatch.

 

“How long have I got to keep the herbs in?” I asked, my fingers ghosting over the eyepatch, they were itchy.

 

“Till the next full moon, love.” Mum reached forward, touched my arm first then found my hand and squeezed it tight. “I’ll show you how so you can do it yourself, if you want. Then all you’ll have to do is get used to living with one eye.” 

 

That would end up being a long annoyance for me.

 

“Hopefully not for long,” Mum added, then her voice took on a dreamy quality, “aye, maybe you’ll lose the next ‘fore you turn ten, won’t tha’ be something?”

 

\---

 

It was time I got used to having one eye. Ullapool was a small port town, though the largest one around, the main street was opposite a small beach and that’s where we played as children. I first left our cottage feeling confident, I had lost my eye on a job and no one could say otherwise, but as I got closer and closer to town I started to doubt myself.

 

Everyone would want to know what happened. What if the others made fun of me, or didn’t want to play with a one-eyed kid. I started to lose confidence with every step, and it didn’t help that nearly every step was a stumble. My balance was off, I hadn’t even been expecting that, my instincts told me to walk naturally but everywhere I placed my feet was wrong. 

 

By the time I got the shore I had lost all my confidence. I stepped onto the beach and all the town’s kids stopped and rushed over, my best mate Thomas being the first. Thomas Drummond had been my best mate since our first meeting at the Crypt Grammar School for Orphans, though Thomas wasn’t an orphan. I always thought he might as well be one with the way he acted, he was was always running off from his parents and you would never find him at home.

 

“Tav! What happened?” He shouted loud enough for the whole town to hear. 

 

“I lost my eye,” I responded, shy for the first time in my life.

 

“We can see that, ya blockhead!” Tom shouted. “But how’d it happen?”

 

I looked at all the waiting faces, bit my lip and delved into my tale. I started with my mum, explained the castle and the funny magician, spoke about what a good job I did sweeping, and finally the talking book. By the time I finished the other kids were gasping with fright or disbelief. There was only one kid frowning and standing off to his own, Duncan Rattay. 

 

“That’s bollocks! There’s no magician out in the moors,” he asserted, and crossed his arms.

 

“Well that’s wha’ happened,” I shot back, the crowd of others around me had revitalized my confidence.

 

“Then prove it,” Rattray challenged.

 

I was a loss of what to say, the castle was gone, and with it the magician. There would be no way I could prove a thing. Thomas spoke up on my behalf, and unknowingly condemned me to a lifetime of Duncan Rattray’s ridicule. 

 

“He’ll prove it all right! Just you wait, you’ll eat your words!” 

 

Of course I’d lead them to the moors, to the empty space where the castle used to sit, and I’d lose all credibility. From that point on, until I was sixteen, everyone wanted to know the real story of how I lost my eye, they’d pull me aside from a party and ask, “Okay, no one else is around, you can tell me the truth.” It was bloody annoying.

 

Then one Halloween Duncan Rattray would come screaming into town white as a sheet. He’d stumble into a group of us outside the pub and look me straight in the face and he’d stammer, “Ey-ey- EYEBALL!” And run off screaming and warning all the townspeople.

 

That’s how we found out my eye was haunting the moors.

 

\---

 

“Mum, can Tom and I try the family Scrumpy?” I gave her an innocent smile even though she couldn’t see it.

 

“Oh sure, have a pint,” she replied sarcastically. “And when I’m done pouring I’ll just set you two up with a tin of biscuits, and then I’ll empty your father’s earnings into your pockets, how’s that sound?”

 

The both of use deflated, it was unlikely that Mum would treat two seven year olds to Scrumpy anyway.

 

“Please, Ma’am, just a taste,” Thomas pleaded.

 

Mum slammed her cane on the table in front of us, making us both jump with fright. “You two want a drink?”

 

We nodded our heads, and I uttered a, “Yes, Mum.”

 

“Then you’ve got to earn it.”

 

I could see the gears working in Thomas’s head, bless his mischievous soul. “So what you’re saying, Ma’am, is that all we’ve go to do is work for it?” 

 

“Aye, you earn your man’s drink like a man.” Mum nodded.

 

That’s all we needed to hear, we ran off determined to find the quickest job around. We headed straight to the main street where we had options. There were stores surely in need of child labor, and if not the docks were right across the road. With all the men off to war they’d have spots available for young lads.

 

We had luck at the first shop we stopped at. The town bookstore was pretty large for a town as small as Ullapool, and we spent the whole day sweeping, dusting, and rearranging books. It was a bit harder for me, every time I reached for something I overshot it, I still wasn’t used to one eye, and I was quite wary of each book I picked up. I made sure not to read a single one of them, for fear of losing my other eye.That fear stuck with me for some time, leaving me with the worst grades in town. When we finished we each got paid a half penny and we eagerly ran back to my Mum. 

 

“Playing at librarian?” Mum laughed. “That’s not a job. Your father’s first job was as a Bomb Boy, he woke up every morning at four to pedal his bike through the village and throw bombs at everybody’s doorstep, barely got paid a farthing for a week’s worth. And you want a drink for alphabetizing books?”

 

Dejected, Thomas and I stashed our earnings but promised to meet early the next morning to find a better job. It was still dark when we returned to the main street, this time our eyes set on the shore side. We found a local fisherman willing to let two seven year olds onto his boat. We were lumped in with the other men, pulling on nets and traps, sorting fish from debris. At the end of the day we smelt like a bad stew.

 

One of the men offered us a swig from their brandy bottle, but we declined, certain that Mum would have two pints of Scrumpy waiting for us. What we got was a laugh in the face.

 

“Fishing? You two have a relaxing holiday then?” Mum cackled. “You know your father’s eighth job was working with a traveling circus, spent his days blowing up balloons. Aye, how he used to make the children cry every time he exploded one. Now that was a job.”

 

The next job we had was on a farm, Mum had words to say about that.

 

“Been to the petting zoo have ye?” She dismissed us. “Wish your father could’ve gone to a petting zoo, but he was too busy working! He used to be a debt collector going door to door to tell people they owed money.” She wistfully placed both her hands over her heart. “Oh how he loved dropping those bomb shells...and blowing those people up.”

 

Tom and I went out to look for work again, but it seemed we done just about every job Ullapool had to offer.

 

“We shoulda taken that man’s brandy when we had the chance!” Thomas kicked at a rock with frustration.

 

I sat down on a bench and scratched around my eyepatch. Despite wearing the damn thing for two weeks it still cut into my forehead, and the herbs were itchier than all hell. “I dunno, think a factory would take on a couple of kids?”

 

“Ah just forget it, Tav, your mum’s never gonna give us that drink,” Thomas said bitterly.

 

We were sitting by the river when a group of adults came by, surveying the land, particularly an old abandoned church. A crowd of older boys followed closely, each had a sledge hammer in hand. The adults pointed around and spoke out instructions and the boys set to work, slamming their hammers into the exterior brick walls of the church, making zero progress in their attempt to demolish the building.

 

“Oi!” I shouted at the adults. “What are you doing that for!” 

 

A fat mutton-chopped man looked to me. “Making room for victory gardens, lad, prime minister says whoever has the most victory gardens is going to win the war. That’s why they’re called ‘victory’ gardens.”

 

“Another victory garden?” Thomas spat out. “How many bloody carrots do we need? Mum says that the government might as well be run by rabbits.”

 

I wasn’t listening to Thomas complain on about vegetables, I had an idea forming, details and steps were falling into place. Once I had it all put together I said to the mutton-chopped man, “Sir, if you’d be willing to pay us I can demolish that church in minutes.”

 

The man scrutinized the two of us, took in our filthy appearance and eager grins. “I suppose there’s no harm in exploiting children.”

 

A few pounds of composition-C later, Thomas and I were black from head to toe with soot and dust from the explosion, but we were two half-pennies richer and certain that this job qualified for a Scrumpy reward. 

 

Mum even let me pour it myself. That proved to be a bit difficult with one eye, I over shot the distance between the neck of the bottle and our glasses, ended up spilling Scrumpy all over the table. It still makes me cringe to think of wasted Scrumpy.

 

My first taste of the family brew was awful, I remember thinking it tasted like cider gone off. It started off sweet but quickly soured in my mouth and left a foul taste behind. Thomas and I both shared a grimace, he couldn’t even politely finish. I still can’t believe there was ever a drink in my life I didn’t like.

 

\---

 

Thomas would get me in loads of trouble from childhood through adolescence. He was always the devil on my shoulder telling me to use my demolitions knowledge for pranks and such. He was a good mate, responsible for my first kiss. _Not like that!_ He locked me in a cupboard with Alieen MacCallum until we kissed. Though, he is responsible for one the things I’m most ashamed of.

 

“Tavish Finnegan DeGroot!” Mum shrieked at me, brandishing her cane. “I cannot believe my own flesh and blood would be caught doing something so heinous!”

 

“Everyone else was.” It was a pathetic defense, and it did little to alleviate my guilt.

 

“What were you thinking? Throwing rocks at an old lady like that when you could be throwing bombs!” Mum shouted at me.

 

“I’m sorry, Mum.”

 

“Use your head,” she yelled. “Wasting all your skill like that...”

 

“I promise I’ll throw bombs at her next time,” I tried to plead with her.

 

“It just kills me to see you wasting your talent like that, and after you’ve already lost one eye.” She shook her head. “I knew it was too promising.”

 

“Mum, I’m sorry.”

 

“What would your father think.”

 

That’s what made me most shameful. 

 

\---

 

Mum and I would spend the remainder of the war in Glasgow, she packed up our cottage saying, “We’ve got to go where the jobs are.” We moved into a tenement building on Dalmarnock road, just ten miles from where the Clydebank Blitz took place. Glasgow was where the majority of the shipbuilding and munitions factories were, and Mum quickly got a job in a bomb factory. 

 

She was overjoyed to be working again, but Glasgow brought new challenges to me. Our tenement building had stairs, something I hadn’t had to deal with in our little cottage in Ullapool. Stairs with monocular vision was the worst, I never knew when my foot would connect with solid ground, and I ended up falling down them most days.

 

“Mum, you said I’d get used to this,” I complained. She was treating yet another bruised knee.

 

“And you will,” she reassured.

 

I huffed. I was frustrated and angry, I had already gotten used to life with one eye in Ullapool, my brain no longer fighting with my feet when I ran down to the shore. My friends had long ago accepted my new appearance, and my eyepatch wasn’t so uncomfortable anymore. But that was all different in the city.

 

“I hate Glasgow,” I sulked.

 

“No you don’t.” 

 

“I do too,” I insisted. Making friends was harder here, back home they knew me before I lost my eye, here I was like a novelty toy to the other kids. The only interesting aspect of me was my eyepatch. And my eyepatch wasn’t faring so well either, it must have been the smog from the factories but my eyepatch was always moist underneath, it was unbearable but I never wanted to take it off in public. 

 

And the bloody air raids, the Germans were persistent blighters. 

 

It was an annoyance to be startled awake in the middle of the night to the sound of the sirens. During school it wasn’t so bad, we got to end lessons and play in the underground shelters, but during the night it was just a nuisance. Our tenement building didn’t have shelters so we were supposed to gather in the close where they reinforced the walls with steel girders that were to keep the ceiling from crashing down.

 

No one ever went to the close, most times Mum just waved off the sirens, cursing the Germans for interrupting her sleep. Other times we gathered at a neighbors and had tea. 

 

“How’s Dad gonna know where we are?” 

 

“I sent word to him,” Mum replied.

 

“What if it doesn’t get to him? What if he gets sent home and he goes to Ullapool and we’re not there!” 

 

“Tavish, child, don’t worry about that.” She pressed an iodine soaked cloth to my bleeding knee, her dismissal of Dad stung more. 

 

“But, Mum...”

 

She squeezed my knee. “Tavish, I can assure you that your father knows how to find us.” She said with such certainty that there was no way I could question her. “Besides, you need to worry about those stairs, what have I told you? You’ve got to retrai-”

 

“Retrain my brain, yeah I know!” I griped.

 

She smacked me. “Then bloody do it!”

 

The second the war ended Mum moved us back to Ullapool. It was refreshing to be home again, and I had even more appeal as a cyclops that had lived in a city compared to before. Even Duncan Rattray couldn’t dispute how much cooler I had gotten. It would still be another year until my father came home. I can remember it clear as day, opening our cottage door and seeing him standing there in his uniform, waiting for me.

 

I never held any ill will toward my parents for leaving me at birth. On the contrary, I felt proud of my Highland Demolitions heritage, and proud of myself for showing my skill at such a young age. My parents were everything I had always dreamed of, and all I ever wanted to do was make them proud.

 

\---

 

“That’s from a film,” Sniper sniffed, and sat up in his chair.

 

Demoman nearly choked on his drink, but swallowed instead. It would be a waste otherwise. “What do you mean that’s a film!”

 

“Everything you just, ‘bout your childhood, s’from a film.”

 

Demoman was insulted at the accusation. “The fuck do you know about films! You’ve never even seen a film.”

 

Sniper frowned, “I have to. I've seen plenty o’ films.”

 

“No you haven’t! And where do you get off tellin’ me my life’s a film.” Demoman stood up so fast his chair knocked over. He stalked away from the Sniper, he wasn’t even aware the man had been listening to his stories. He stomped down the hall toward the phones, all his reminiscing left him homesick.

 

He dialed and waited patiently for his Mum to pick up.

 

“Tavish? Is that you?” Her shrill voice carried over the phone. 

 

“Aye, Mum, it’s me.”

 

“What are you doing calling me? Shouldn’t you be working? Oh, they’ve fired you haven’t they!” She broke off into a long lament about her son’s employment. Demoman sighed and pressed his forehead against the wall, he should have fought his homesick feelings with Scrumpy instead.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Petition to refer to Demo’s parents as DemoDad and DemoMum
> 
> I never intended for this to get so long, I just sort of started to string together headcanons for Demo’s childhood, and there’s still so much more I would have added. Also wasn’t sure about the POV, but idk it seemed to fit.


End file.
